


What they Call...

by orangememory



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10727259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangememory/pseuds/orangememory
Summary: Cameron discovers something human.





	What they Call...

**WHAT THEY CALL …**  
  
  
She is nothing but living molecules on metal- metal that can never corrode, never be eaten away by the warped fabric of space-time.  
  
She is no reflection of a human soul, just an empty, soulless being that can dance and devastate with the smallest movement. Yes, she is not real; she is an impossible dream of the present, moulded by the future, sent back as reality into the annals of the past.  
  
Her only duty is to protect and terminate. Protect and terminate. Nothing else.  
  
*****  
Sarah hates running. She hates running away from the present, the past, the future, with her son in tow. He’s a child, he doesn’t deserve to suffer, she cries to herself.  
  
Every single person around her has a secret, every single man or machine is devious. She cannot trust anyone to shield her child from the darkness.  
  
She has seen the Terminators come and go, some seeking to melt her into oblivion, some to give their lives- no, wait, they don’t have any- for her.  
  
Her fears are never dispelled by the robot in the guise of a child, promising to protect her son.  
  
For robots do not promise. They are programmed.  
  
*****  
The human woman dislikes her. Dislike. Strange how she can feel emotion and she cannot.  
  
She wishes she could feel, sometimes. But she has been built to mimic emotions, to simulate responses.  
  
But she can wish, can’t she?  
  
*****  
Sarah presumes that the robot girl doesn’t eat anything, when she sets down some nachos with salsa for herself.  
  
But she is startled out of her sanity, when the girl gingerly takes one in her hand and swallows it. Well, she does eat chips; Sarah thinks to herself and privately decides not to exempt Miss Machine from meals.  
  
She quietly offers her another nacho, hoping that the insentient being will realize that she doesn’t hate her.  
  
She accepts. Perhaps, perhaps Cameron understands after all.  
  
*****  
“You will take care of John, won’t you?”, Sarah asks Cameron as they set out for the beginning of a new school year.  
  
“ It is my duty to protect John Connor.”, Cameron replies stoically, no hint or inflection in her voice. Her uncanny, robotic voice.  
  
“ I trust you.”, Sarah stumbles to say these words aloud, for in her heart, she had never trusted this machine. Why, she could end lives, her John’s life in an instant of steel and flame.  
  
But now, for some unnatural reason she has begun to trust her.  
  
“ Thank you.”, Sarah whispers and hugs her. She holds Cameron for a long, quiet moment and then lets go.  
  
Cameron begins to walk away slowly. There’s a sonic disturbance in the air, and her aural receptors kick into gear.  
  
“ And yeah, take care of yourself too.”  
  
For the first time in her existence, Cameron wonders. She wonders if this is what humans call love.


End file.
